To think there is no safe way to vape

[tigwig76]

Last night my just turned 15 yr old confided in me she had been regularly trying her friend's vapes and on Sat used a new friend's vape that contained 18% nicotine. This obviously resulted in her wanting more and she wants to start doing it herself as it tastes nice and you can do cool things with them! She thinks she'll be ok with 3% nicotine and it's fine as much better than actual smoking. I've told her it's not a good idea etc etc and that I would never give my blessing but of course I fear she will just go it anyway! So where do I go from here? There isn't a safe way surely?

You can get nicotine free vapes

Vaping with no nicotine isn't bad.
Wouldn't recommend vaping with nicotine unless you're a smoker trying to quit, I use nicotine but I was smoking 30 a day

I would be horrified by this. I have a 15 year old dd myself and I would be sitting her down and showing her loads of stuff not just about lung cancer but also about asthma and copd. I don’t believe vaping is safe at all, all those chemicals going into your lungs just can’t be good for you.

Well you are right our bodies are not designed to inhale hot air mixed with chemicals.s..
But it is way safer than smoking and as someone who started in fags at age 12 I was happy to discover vaping in my 40s and feel better for it.

The flavours and heavy clouds can be generated with low nicotine.

So this is the NHS stance on vaping vs smoking. I don't think vaping is great (however it's kept me off the cigs for over 2 years now) but I think a lot of teens now take this up and don't smoke cigarettes.

It's still illegal to sell vapes and juice to under 18s. (But she'll be able to buy them both via school mates I would expect!) It's tricky but I think the fact that she has spoken to you and you can have an open dialogue is a positive thing!

My GP says vaping is safe, though she was referring to people who do it instead of smoking.

I'm very pro vaping as, in my experience, it's the most likely thing that smokers will stick to to give up the cigarettes. I think vaping makes society healthier on the whole and I don't really get all the hate for it. ANYTHING is better than smoking and, if it works, it should be applauded.

I do however, think that people taking up vaping when they don't smoke already are idiots. It's utterly stupid to start something when you're not addicted.... however lots of people could have said the same to me when I started smoking at a young age and I didn't listen then.

On the positive side she has confided in you whereas I kept smoking a secret because I knew it would get me in trouble. I assume you plan to show her this thread to try and persuade her out of vaping? If so here's how I feel about my history of smoking / vaping.

• When you get addicted to nicotine you don't care how you get it. When you turn 18 and your ecig battery runs out down the pub you don't think "oh well", you go to the only shop that's open and buy some cigarettes, that will happen no matter how strong you think your willpower is. Nicotine is stronger.

• When you go through something stressful you remember that cigarettes really hit the spot. I vaped exclusively for 2 years, redundancy and the potential loss of my home hit and yeh you know I started smoking again to take the edge off

• When your vape coil burns out but you don't know until you have a massive lungful of burnt cotton. Yep, there's a good chance that will make you vomit.

• When your liquid leaks out of your ecig for the thousandth time all over you or all over the contents of your bag. Make sure you always have tissues on you because it's going to be a regular thing for you.

• It doesn't take long at all to get used to a flavour and you stop tasting it so you have to keep buying new bottles and flavours to keep up with it

• It will dehydrate you without you realising. Dry mouth, headaches are both something I experience.

As I said, I'm very much pro vaping as a tool to quit smoking and I'm reluctant to go on about the negatives because I think it gets a lot of negative press that it doesn't deserve. It just isn't worth it if you're not already addicted though, it really isn't.

She shouldn’t be vaping at all at her age. You can however get 0% nic e-liquids, in fact for sub-ohm vaping it’s the norm to buy them with 0 nic. For eg I buy large bottles of 0 nic liquid and mix in a nic shot to make them up to 3%.

For this though you need a sub-ohm tank and a mod which is capable of delivering a higher wattage than those little pens you buy at the corner shop.Then you buy the 0 nic higher VG liquids.

Like I said though, she shouldn’t be vaping at 15. I’m not sure it’s against the law if there’s no nic involved though so she could probably buy her own liquids and equipment and there’s nothing you can do.

I’m a long term vaper and I only vape 3% nic, which for me is an improvement as I used to smoke rollies, but it is still very addictive, even at low nic.How safe it really is remains to be seen. I think it’s much better than smoking but whether it’s 100% safe I’m not sure.

I absolutely dont want her to do it but am pleased she's been able to tell me.
It's as I told her, she would get into the bad habit of vaping then very likely want more.
There's only 6 weeks of school left so I'm hoping she'll forget about it over the summer! She's unlikely to be in contact with the 'friends' who give her it then.

No vapour products on sale in the world contain as much as 18% nicotine and even 3% is illegal in the EU.
Highest nicotine content allowed in EU is 2% (commonly 1.8%).
Better than smoking of course but illegal for under 18s to purchase vapour products. Also illegal for over 18s to purchase on behalf of under 18s.

It's highly unlikely she'll become addicted to nicotine through vaping alone. Vaped nicotine doesn't provide anything like the same huge brain hit as lit tobacco.

If she's not also smoking then in all probability the novelty will wear off soon and she'll quietly forget about it.

There do seem to be a tiny few children who take to vaping when they have never smoked. These are children who would most likely have started smoking if vaping had not been available. This is good news because it's not the nicotine that causes health issues (beyond addiction), it's all the other stuff in the smoke from a cigarette - carbon monoxide, tar etc.

If she is also smoking then that's where your real problem is.

ash.org.uk/media-and-news/press-releases-media-and-news/uks-largest-ever-analysis-of-data-shows-no-evidence-that-e-cigarettes-are-leading-young-people-into-smoking/

Yes of course, that was my error, I vape 0.3% nic, the highest available now since TPD is 2%. As for head rush, the salt nicotine is very efficient at delivering nicotine to the brain. I can feel the difference if I put a salt nic shot in my juices. It’s very popular but I don’t like it. You can get the little pod type devices with salt nic but they’re more expensive, and salt nic comes in 2% Or 1.8%. On the website where I get my e-liquids there’s actually a warning about the potency of salt nic, and it actually recommends not using it if you don’t usually vape that much nicotine.

If your DD does want to vape then a sub-ohm setup is best. 0% nicotine is the norm. I doubt very much that would lead to smoking because there’s no nicotine to start with and no need to introduce it.

Is it better than smoking? Most likely. Does this mean vaping is healthy? No!

And that's imo the problem. It's not (just) smokers that vape. It's also a lot of non smokers that start vaping... And it seems to me like the 'fun flavours' are deliberately appealing to children / teens.

It's also a lot of non smokers that start vaping...

Beyond a bit of short term experimentation this is honestly not the case. Please read the link in my previous post:

Our analysis of the latest surveys from all parts of the United Kingdom, involving thousands of teenagers shows clearly that for those teens who don’t smoke, e-cig experimentation is simply not translating into regular use.

And it seems to me like the 'fun flavours' are deliberately appealing to children / teens. Extremely poor business plan to market your product to a demographic that can't legally obtain it.

Does this mean vaping is healthy? Nobody except those against vaping make that claim, in fact health claims of any sort by manufacturers/vendors are illegal.

Gateway to nicotine.

I vape as I used to smoke cigarettes so it is (hopefully) much less harmful than cigarettes, but if you don't smoke cigarettes then vaping is madness. Especially vaping with nicotine.

Doctors used to recommend smoking.

I'm sure this'll be fine. 🤔🚬☠

It's healthier than a ciggy, but still bad for you. It's good if transferring from cigs to vaping to stopping entirely, but not if you're replacing cigs with vaping. We still don't understand the full health implications yet. Remember, people once thought smoking was healthy!

Vaping is less carcinogenic than cigarettes. However, long before you would have been dead prematurely from trad gigs, the e gigs will have destroyed your lungs. It will wreck your lungs more effectively than traditional smoking. Check out this blog and esp the paper at footnote 18:
vapingsucks.blogspot.com

Just as bad as smoking cigarettes imo. It's too early to know the real effects of vaping. It's good she's confided in you and shows you must have a really good relationship. You're right that she could go ahead and do it without your blessing but hopefully you can show her just how bad it is and she will make the decision not to for herself.

Genuine question: what do people get out of vaping? What does it do for you? Does it relax you? Perk you up? I have no idea?and would be interested to know..